


fitting stars through keyholes

by helwolf



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: (because that soft raccoon boy needs therapy before smooching his geriatric bf), Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Slow Dancing, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-19 22:07:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1485844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helwolf/pseuds/helwolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a gun against his neck, the muzzle pressed beneath his jaw like a harsh kiss, and the first thought that runs through Steve’s head is, “Oh, I’m going to die in my pajamas.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	fitting stars through keyholes

**Author's Note:**

> so I saw tws for the first time yesterday and it filled me with emotions which I subsequently spilled all over a word document. bon appetit

There’s a gun against his neck, the muzzle pressed beneath his jaw like a harsh kiss, and the first thought that runs through Steve’s head is, “Oh, I’m going to die in my pajamas.”

He tenses, awake all at once. The room is blanketed in heavy darkness but there’s enough light from the city edging through the blinds for him to make out the shadow of a figure, looming close. There's a glint, inhuman, and all of a sudden Steve realises: _Bucky_. The air is punched out of his lungs. There are two dips in the mattress where the man— _the Winter Soldier, not Bucky, not him_ —is straddling his hips.

“Captain America,” murmurs a voice, low and awfully familiar.

Let it be known that Steve Rogers isn’t the kind to curse. If he _was_ to swear he’s mighty sure he would’ve unloaded his entire vocabulary right there. Instead, he gasps out, “Bucky—“

The gun digs into his jaw further. The Winter Soldier leans so close that Steve can feel the mattress shift. Hair tickles his cheek, hot breath against his mouth. “I want you to tell about him.”

Steve blinks. “Him?”

“The one who came before me,” the Soldier says, terse. 

“He—“ Steve cuts himself off with a grimace. “Bucky, you were my friend.”

The safety catch clicks and Steve lies there, a bullet away from nothingness, mind a mismatched jumble of thoughts. He doesn’t understand—wasn’t expecting the Winter Soldier to find _him_. He was lined up, gear and all, to seek out Bucky with Sam as his comrade-in-arms. It’s too early, and he’s caught in a quiet panic because he hadn’t even broached the subject of _what to do when Bucky is found_.

Steve exhales through his mouth, follows the line of the gun. It’s in his left hand.

Bucky is right-handed.

“Why did you rescue me?” Steve asks.

There’s a pause. “Maybe I wanted to kill you myself.”

 _Checkmate_ , Steve thinks, pulse racing. He knows in that instant that this isn’t the Winter Soldier—not completely, not wholly. The soviets are nothing if not thorough and assassination isn’t about personal revenge. It’s cold, hard politics. 

He looks again at the hand holding the gun.

“Is this another one of your missions?” Steve asks.

The Winter Soldier recoils. In one fluid motion he’s off the bed and against the wall, spooked like a stray cat. The firearm remains aloft but his aim is off; if he were to shoot, it would only graze Steve’s left shoulder.

“You’ve been out of cryo for weeks,” Steve says, a flame of hope tucked deep within his ribcage.

He shucks the covers off and slides out of bed. The floorboards are cold beneath his bare feet. His heart is in his ears, his fingers, his throat—he can feel it under his skin, as if it has blown wide to fit his whole body like a glove. He flicks the lamp on beside his bed and they’re bathed in molten light.

“You shouldn't be searching for me,” the Winter Soldier says in a hollow voice. He jerks his chin towards the floor and Steve spares it a sidelong look.

All of the files he and Sam collected are spread out, papers a mess in his usually tidy room. Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes of the Howling Commandos stares back at him from one page with a handsome, lopsided grin.

Steve ignores it, looks back up, takes a step forwards. His eyes drink in the Winter Soldier’s face like a parched man. The last few times he saw him were quick, swift, and bruising. But now he can _look_ , really look, for the first time in a lifetime. He’s scarred and worn in a way Steve's Bucky never was. His jaw is sharply defined and his eyes are darkened with violet shadows. Steve wonders when he last slept.

It feels like an age has passed and yet no time at all, like it was just yesterday Bucky was dusting him off and pushing him onto a bench, hands delicate and hard all at once. “Scrappy git,” he used to mutter, affectionately, fingers against his cheekbone. “There’re times I think you _want_ to be a bloody pulp.”

 _What did they do to you?_ Steve thinks with abject loss. He knows Bucky like the back of his hand. They‘re two pieces which slot together to make one whole, but therein lies the crux of the problem: this isn’t Bucky, not quite, not yet.

There is someone else there, wearing Bucky’s face like a fractured mask. Someone dangerous, and it makes Steve’s heart stutter and squeeze tight within his chest in a singular ache because it’s _Bucky_ but it’s _not_. Somewhere along the line his friend was fractured, replaced with a trigger, an insidious mercenary capable of picking off targets without a backwards glance.

Steve wants to tear down whatever they built in him from the foundations.

Bucky hasn’t moved, expression unreadable, and Steve is scant inches away from him. He wants to ask him how he could ever think to leave him behind. The price of freedom is high but Captain America is _a liar_ , because if he was anything close to the sort of hero the newspapers make him out to be he’d have shot a bullet straight through Bucky’s temple while he had the chance. Instead, he’d put civilians at risk. Behind his shield stands a man unwilling to pay the price when it extends to Bucky’s life.

He wants to say this, all of this, wants to say, “How could I not come looking for you, Buck?” but his tongue is twisted into fishing knots.

All of the words smoulder into ash in his mouth, heavy sand stuck between his teeth, and sometimes he thinks words pale compared to actions.

So instead, Steve reaches out and touches his human wrist, lightly, presses his thumb right into the hot pulse-point.

Bucky looks startled and Steve wonders why he hasn’t killed him yet.

Steve cant let go of Bucky. Bucky was there for him when no one else was in sight, before the serum and the people asking for his autograph at every block. He was there for _Steve Rogers_ , not Captain America.

Bucky’s heart is beating wildly, in tune with Steve’s, like music under his skin, and he isn’t even bothering holding the gun up now. His cybernetic arm is lax by his side as he stares at Steve wide-eyed.

Steve drops his hand.

He steps away. The record player is just beside them, and the tone arm is cool beneath his fingers as he lifts it and moves it over the groove, sets the needle on the disk he was listening to the previous day.

A tune fills the room—loud and rusty and familiar in a way which feels sore. It’s one of the few records he owned when he was a kid.

He steps back. Bucky is looking down and off, not at Steve. He’s frowning.

 _This man could snap my neck_ , Steve thinks, before placing a sure hand on Bucky’s waist. He’s closer than before, can smell the scent of fragrant soap on his skin, reminding him he’s human, he’s human, he’s not a weapon. He presses even closer, puts his other hand on Bucky’s. It’s the metal one, the non-flesh one, but Steve doesn’t mind. The gun drops between Bucky’s fingers and barely makes a sound through the music as it clatters to the floor.

“Bucky,” he says, aching.

“Steve,” the Soldier says, and before he catches himself Steve sees a flicker of his old friend—slick and confident and liquid gold.

The tension drops out of the assassin’s body like a stone.

Steve moves and Bucky moves with him. Steve’s hand fists in his hoodie, and Bucky’s good hand moves to Steve’s hip, barely touching. Steve wonder if it's muscle memory from a life lost under ice.

 _Oh_ , Steve thinks. _Oh._

He leans his forehead into Bucky’s shoulder and inhales deeply. They’re so close that their chests are aligned and it’s not dancing so much as it is just moving together, breathing together. When Steve’s fingers thread through Bucky’s cold ones Bucky makes a startled noise in his throat. 

 _Oh_ , Steve thinks again.

He doesn’t know why it comes to him in this moment—maybe it’s just the closeness—but a memory edges into the corner of his mind of the first (and only) time he and Bucky had kissed.

It had been right after Bucky got the MIA letter about his pa, rough and soft all at once, full of sorrow, Bucky’s lips shaping the words he couldn’t get out.

Steve had kissed his eyelids, after, said, “I’m not leavin’, Buck. I’m not.”

Then he’d pressed his lips to his best friend’s throat, feeling the bob of his Adam’s apple. “You’re nutty as a fruitcake if you think you’re gonna enlist without me. When have you ever been able to get ridda me that easy? I’m with you for good, whether you want me or not.”

After that, they didn’t talk about it. There’d been plenty of times in the proceeding years where Steve wanted to drag him by his dog tags and string him up against the wall with fingers like rope and kiss him, spill the gazes and unsaid things between them like blood, good and easy.

But nothing about the war was easy, so he kept a footstep between them at all times, didn’t realise the mistake he was making until the heat of Bucky’s hand faded from his own.

Now, Bucky’s mouth is half-open and still against Steve’s neck. Steve thinks, somewhat hysterically, at least he doesn’t have to stand on his tip-toes nowadays.

The song has ended but they keep holding each other in silence, together the way they were made to be.

Steve pulls back a little, looks at Bucky. The curve of his lips strikes a chord deep inside Steve and he realises he’s staring at his mouth, can’t help it. He memorised the shape of Bucky’s mouth from quick, furtive glances as teen, learnt from a young age that being caught staring at a bloke for too long wasn’t a sharp idea.

“I’m not a dame.” And that’s all Bucky. His eyes are bright.

Steve wants to laugh and cry all at once, like a kid again.

“No,” Steve agrees, “you’re definitely not.”

And then he presses forwards and kisses him so hard he's sure he bruises his own lips.

His mind is empty and vast except—oh, Bucky is _kissing back_. Bucky—he’s _moving against Steve_ , meeting him at every shift and God, God, _God_.

He needs Bucky now more than he can ever remember needing air or water.

Bucky spins him and shoves him roughly against the wall as Steve makes a noise of surprise which Bucky swallows down, stubble scraping against Steve's jaw. They’re frantic and desperate and it’s _everything_. He wanted Bucky so much, always wanted him, and there are years of loss pressed between their mouths.

And before Steve can register it there’s a muscled thigh pressed between his. He wishes he could apologise to God in that moment but instead he’s too busy groaning into Bucky’s mouth, Bucky’s tongue doing wicked things inside his own. His teeth are sharp against Steve’s lips and it feels like a punishment just as much as a gift, like the Soldier isn’t sure whether he wants to swallow Steve right up or punch him to the ground.

They pull apart, panting for air, lips still grazing as they breathe. Bucky’s pupils are darker than anything Steve has ever seen before, blown wide in his eyes, his face set in a pained grimace.

“I miss you so much, Buck,” Steve says, and his voice is a wisp of smoke.

Saying those six words is a mistake.

This only dawns on him a second later as he is shoved against the wall, again, this time not in coiled desperation but in fury. 

The soldier looks at him. His eyes are cold, made from steel, but his lips are raw and bruised and swollen and _did Steve bite him, too—_

“Don’t come looking for me, Steve Rogers,” says the man. “I will kill you.”

Words formed like blades, sharpened edges, and Steve is _reeling_.

He closes his eyes against it all and registers the snap of his door shutting a second later, feels the emptiness around him and the shadow of Bucky’s thigh between his, the itch of stubble burn on his cheek.

He lets out a shuddering breath.

When he opens his eyes, he is alone.

* * *

 

Two days later he finds himself cradling a cup of coffee in the graveyard he visits once a week with Natasha beside him.

“So,” Natasha says, hair a wicked flame around her. “Did you ask Sharon out yet?”

“Well,” Steve says, staring at the flowers beside Nick’s fake grave. His lips quirk without humour. “Not quite.”

 

* * *

 

The next time he sees the Winter Soldier, months have passed.

Steve is on his knees, asphalt grazing his skin. His hands are on his head and there are two rifles jabbing into either side of his neck.

The Winter Soldier is a few feet away, dressed in his battle attire except for the mask. A mistake, Steve thinks; Bucky’s mouth has always been expressive the same way other folk’s eyes are. Now, it is pressed into a hard line.

He flexes his cybernetic hand. It flashes in the sunlight.

There is one thing Steve knows: Bucky is a war within himself, a part-broken wall, a shattered being, half cold assassin, half sharp boy from Brooklyn. Everything has changed but Steve has always been the kind of guy to face a fist head-on.

It’s a toss of a coin. It all hinges on the decision the Soldier makes. He can take out the knight, or he can get rid of the pawns.

Steve looks him in the eyes and thinks, _your turn_.


End file.
